@Smark @tazdedub @Julio_Geordio @Spidey - appreciate the responses. Just to say at the outset, I’m not buying a house in Belgium! I’ll probably go for a partially built “celtic tiger” house in a rural setting - that way, I bypass the planning headaches (and I know what they’re like having worked in that field before) and can get good bang-for-buck.
Have approval in principle from one bank, and will probably apply to another to leave my options as open as possible.
You should be able to keep the existing mortgage amount on its current rate and whatever balance you need to make up the purchase on the new property at the current market rate.
Moving out of the apartment this week into leafy Limerick suburbia. Happy days,
Bought a place did you?
Did pal, everything’s sorted now, the previous owners signed on the dotted line on Friday, getting the keys this week.
Happy days.
Some cunt will probably tell you not to listen to a lunatic, but I would say fixed over variable. Interest rates might drop more short term, but once they start to rise the ascent rate can be quite steep. Nothing worse than being stuck with a variable mortgage as rates rise. Could be a few years but with all the QE shiteology in Europe, inflation is an inevitable outcome followed by rapidly increasing rates.
Cheers pal
BUY rent is dead money
Has anyone ever bought a place and done it up & extended it? Is it an awful pain?
Would you be better off just coughing up the extra and buying a house that’s more or less what you need already?
I wouldn’t mind an auld project, but there isn’t much point killing yourself only to end up with what you could have bought for less.
you’ll probably end up paying the same for the same end result, but with the added headache of renovating and possibly living in a building site as a result during it. there is the bonus of the extension being built how you want it, but the negative that sometimes extensions just shoved onto existing houses dont always work.
Agreed.
Buying a site & building from scratch to your own style is cheaper as I have painfully found out.
Except when you build a house as a single 25 year old with no concept of kids or even a wife 
Its not all that cheap when you have the wife and family either 
Did you build just one room, with an auld bed in the corner? 
A fuck off tree house with a snooker room and a slide and a bar?
The silver pole in the kitchen was quickly replaced by an ‘island’.
Attaining The island is the peak of female existence.
In fairness, it give great cover when you are getting saucepans fired at you.
I’m about to head down this road pal. I’ve looked at the costs up and down, and there is definitely value to be had.
@Joe_Player - thanks mate - taking the plunge!